Rail accident shows importance of pipelines

The train that went off the rails July 6 was a tragedy for a Canadian city and more than a dozen people who were killed. The accident adds new questions to the debate over the Keystone XL pipeline and how best to safely move oil in North America.

It's hard to conceive of a buried oil pipeline creating such a disaster. Yet, while there is powerful resistance to building the Keystone XL pipeline through the U.S. midsection, shipments of oil by rail have increased exponentially as a result of the exploitation of oil shale and oil sands in the United States and Canada.

Unless pipeline capacity is increased, the numbers of railroad cars loaded with oil traversing the United States and Canada are expected to continue growing significantly.

This country's economy runs in large part on fuel from refined oil, and a growing share of that oil is coming from oil fields in North America.

The challenge is to find the safest, most efficient means of transporting that fuel, and the petroleum industry and state and federal regulators must insist on the highest standards for avoiding and containing oil spills.

The evidence is hard to refute that moving oil by pipeline is safer for humans, because railroads pass through population centers. It is also the most efficient method, with 80 percent of crude oil and 60 percent of refined petroleum in this county moving by pipeline.

There are something on the order of 500,000 miles of pipelines crisscrossing the country carrying crude oil, petroleum products and natural gas. It would be hard to imagine replacing that capacity with trucks or railroad tank cars.

The consequences of our reliance on oil are real and should not be dismissed. The only realistic long-range goal for a cleaner planet for today and for future generations is to find alternatives to our reliance on burning fossil fuels. Until we are serious about that, stopping one pipeline will not make a bit of difference.

- Des Moines Register

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Rail accident shows importance of pipelines

The train that went off the rails July 6 was a tragedy for a Canadian city and more than a dozen people who were killed. The accident adds new questions to the debate over the Keystone XL pipeline